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Aliayah Lunsford
Three-year-old Aliayah was last seen on September 24, 2011 in bed in her home in Weston, West Virginia. She had been sick with flu-like symptoms (including vomiting) the previous evening. When Aliayah's mother, Lena Marie Lunsford, went to check on her at 6:30 a.m., she was in bed asleep and Her nine-year-old sister also saw her around that time. The next time that Lena checked on Aliayah at 9:00 a.m., she was gone and has never been heard from again. Lena didn't report her daughter missing until 11:30 a.m. (five hours after she was last seen and two and a half hours after Lena realized she was gone). She said that in the interim she drove around in her car looking for Aliayah, running out of gas at one point. There were no indications of forced entry to the house and an extensive search of the area (including a nearby river, turned up no sign of Aliayah. Her family described Aliayah as shy and said that she never would have left her house or yard alone. Nine days following Aliayah's disappearance, her four siblings (aged between nine months and eleven years old) were removed from the household and placed in foster care. Lena was pregnant with twin girls at the time of Aliayah's disappearance and the babies were taken from her after they were born. The state Department of Health and Human Resources didn't give a reason for the removal, but it's worth noting that all of Lena's children (including Aliayah) had previously spent time in foster homes or with relatives. In the month following Aliayah's disappearance, Lena was arrested on federal charges of welfare fraud. She and her husband, Ralph Keith Lunsford (who is Aliayah's stepfather) both have criminal records for various charges for minor offenses. Lena's mother (who would occasionally take care of Aliayah) died in early 2012. In February of 2013, while Lena was in jail, she lost her parental rights to her other six children; Ralph (who is the father of five of the children) also had his parental rights terminated. They divorced in the wake of Aliayah's disappearance. The court found that all the Lunsford children had been neglected and some of them had irreversible tooth decay as a result. Court documents noted that Lena and Ralph had "vaguely accused" each other of involvement in Aliayah's disappearance; the court believed Lena knew more about Aliayah's disappearance than she disclosed, but Lena maintained that she doesn't know anything about what happened to Aliayah and only hopes that she's still alive. Lena was released from jail shortly after losing her parental rights, but she was later re-incarcerated for a series of probation violations related to her welfare fraud conviction. She spent the next few years in and out of custody; she was jailed three times in the five years after Aliayah's disappearance. In November of 2016 (over five years after Aliayah's disappearance), Lena was arrested in her new residence of St. Petersburg, Florida and charged with homicide by child abuse in her case. At Lena's trial in 2018, Ralph testified that they had taken bath salts the night their daughter disappeared and he didn't know what happened to Aliayah. Two of Aliayah's older sisters testified against Lena; the girls (who have since been adopted by another family) were 9 and 11 years old when Aliayah disappeared. They said Lena had always treated Aliayah more severely than her siblings, and on September 23, 2011, she struck Aliayah in the head with a wooden bed slat. Aliayah's head was "squishy" and swollen after she was struck; about twelve hours later her sisters found her unresponsive in bed and Lena attempted to revive her, but didn't call 911 or otherwise try to get her daughter help. Lena then put Aliayah in a laundry hamper, put the hamper in the family car, and took the hamper, Aliayah's sisters and her infant brother to a wooded area known as Vadis (which was in a rural area of the county, off a dirt road without road signs). The younger sister stayed in the family vehicle with the baby while the older sister went with Lena, who was carrying the hamper with Aliayah's body in it. Eventually Lena told the girl to stop & sit down, and left with the hamper. She came back without it, and they all went home. Lena told her daughters not to tell anyone about what happened to Aliayah and threatened them, saying that she had brought them into the world & could take them out of it; the girls kept their secret for five years. Lena's defense argued that the girls were lying, and suggested Aliayah was still alive and might have been been sold for heroin. A restaurant manager from Louisiana testified for the defense, saying that she thought she saw Aliayah with a man at her restaurant in November of 2017. The defense also suggested that if Aliayah was dead, she might've died from of an accidental overdose of flu medication. In April of 2018, Lena was convicted of all counts: murder of a child by refusal or failure to provide necessities, guilty of death of a child by child abuse, child abuse resulting in injury, and concealment of a deceased human body. She was sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murder, plus 40 years for the other charges, to be served consecutively. Aliayah's body has yet to be located and searches of the Vadis area turned up no evidence as to her whereabouts. Authorities believe that her body was buried in a shallow grave in a ravine which floods frequently & that no trace of it may be left now. Foul play is suspected in Aliayah's disappearance due to the circumstances involved. Description Aliayah is described as a Caucasian female with brown hair, brown eyes, is 3'0 and weighs 35 pounds. She has pierced ears and her top four front teeth are missing. She was last seen wearing a pink sweatshirt with a picture of a princess, purple Dora the Explorer pajama bottoms and no shoes. Links *http://www.cnn.com/2011/09/26/justice/west-virginia-missing-child/ *http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?t=150025 Category:Missing Children Category:Females Category:2011